Sunday Oliseh resigned as the chief coach of Nigeria football last week. He gave among other reasons, the fact that NFF always owed him. Specifically he complained of being owed accumulated salary arrears and allowances that spanned 3 months. This is no surprise to any discernable observer of the way NFF treats our indigenous coaches. Delay of salaries is the order of the day as far NFF is concerned.

Oliseh found out that despite being owed his entitlements, he was pilloried for the lackadaisical way Nigeria prosecuted the CHAN competition in Rwanda. He saw, in no small measure, the way he was accused of total cluelessness by the same people who refused to pay him his salaries. He must have been shocked beyond measure I tell you.

I pitied him at a point in the competition because everyone felt he went there with the likes of Ronaldo, Messi, Soares, Bale, etc. The mindsets that watched him in Rwanda felt he should have won the competition with the ‘superb players’ he had. Everyone forgot to mention the fact that our local league has been so degraded that it would be totally difficult to extract good players from it.

To make matters worse, none of our local teams has progressed beyond the knock out stages of the African champions league or the confederation cup. Our teams are always falling by the way side. Yet Oliseh is expected to “perform” with the same players that couldn’t win anything.

Oliseh has his personal struggles I must admit; however, Oliseh must have thought that he was dealing with “reasonable guys” in the NFF. He has forgotten that the organisation is filled with guys who are only interested in government and FIFA grants. They just want the money, period!!

He is also dealing with a football crazy populace who are not interested in whether a coach is paid or not. They believe that Nigeria has ‘abundant talents’ like Barcelona that any coach in the world would just perform with. Nigerians believe that there are ’very good players’ littered all around the country that Oliseh could just harness to become world beaters. This is an albatross any coach of Nigeria must be ready to work with.

We are in a country where dedicated play grounds in cities, towns, schools and villages have been mostly converted to religious places, party and grovelling centres. Housing estates or just relaxation centres. With these conversions it is so difficult to nurture talents like we used to. Our football needs total revolution. The revolution must start from NFF.

For Oliseh, I say welcome to the meaning of Nigeria Football. It is merciless in provision of resources and talents but fully demanding in terms of positive results. Once you’re in, you have only God as your next-of-kin. You are on your own. With the way NFF is structured, I can only pity the next coach…

Oliseh, sorry o!! However I must hail him though: He resigned which is anathema to us..Ewolewoo!!